AHC: Elect a Bachmann-Santorum presidency in 2012

Exactly as it says on the tin. Use whatever methods you need to use to elect a Bachmann-Santorum or Santorum-Bachmann presidency.

What would their policies be like when elected?
 
If a relatively moderate Republican like Mitt Romney can't win, I really don't see how you're gonna get a pair of crazies like Bachmann and Santorum into the White House.

I think you basically need a situation where no other Republican wants the nomination, and so one of the crazies just gets it by default, and picks the other crazy as running mate. Then, throw in a VERY strong third-party candidate on the left, to divide the Democratic vote. And I don't just mean siphon off a few votes, like Nader in 2000, I mean spilt the left-wing vote right in half.

With all those circumstances in place, if the Crazies can get somewhere between about 27% and 30% of the vote, they might win.
 
I think you basically need a situation where no other Republican wants the nomination, and so one of the crazies just gets it by default, and picks the other crazy as running mate. Then, throw in a VERY strong third-party candidate on the left, to divide the Democratic vote. And I don't just mean siphon off a few votes, like Nader in 2000, I mean spilt the left-wing vote right in half.

This--or even something close to Nader's 2000 vote--didn't happen in OTL against Romney and it certainly wouldn't have happened against Bachmann or Santorum.

Which brings me to one of my favorite points: Nader wanted Bush to win in 2000 as part of what the French call *la politique du pire*--make things bad enough, and the people will demand real change. This is not speculation on my part--Nader said it. "If you want the parties to diverge from one another, have Bush win." https://web.archive.org/web/2006082...utside/magazine/200008/200008camp_nader1.html Yet this approach didn't even succeed on its own terms. Liberal dislike for the GW Bush administration made liberals more willing, not less, to support any Democrat who had a chance of defeating him, even if that Democrat had serious faults from their point of view (e.g., Kerry's vote to authorize the use of force in Iraq)--and less likely to support a left-wing third party in the future. The memory of 2000 is one reason why there wasn't likely to be a left-wing third party in 2012 even if the left had been more dissatisfied with Obama than it was, and of course this is doubly true if the GOP nominates a far-right candidate rather than Romney. I predict that this memory will also work against a left-wing third party in 2016, even if Hillary Clonton wins the Democratic nomination. In that sense, Naderism as a third party movement contained the seeds of its own destruction.
 
Which brings me to one of my favorite points: Nader wanted Bush to win in 2000 as part of what the French call *la politique du pire*--make things bad enough, and the people will demand real change. This is not speculation on my part--Nader said it. "If you want the parties to diverge from one another, have Bush win."

Yes, there is a certain type of left-wing ideologue who always assumes that, when things get bad enough, the voters will say "Okay, it's gotten so horrible, that the only thing which can save us now is true socialism."

Whereas what they usually end up saying is "Jesus, just get RID of these guys! I don't care, I'll vote for Fascism Lite if I have to, anything to get Fascism Ultra out of power!!"
 
Also interesting that, when we now actually do have a socialist candidate making a serious run in the Democratic primaries, and being given a respectful hearing by the media, it follows immediately after two terms of the centrist Obama, not one term of the right-wing Bush(the latter being Nader's prediction).
 
Last edited:
How to get it? Easy.
1. Romney doesn't get votes, for his "liberal policies".
2. Ron Paul doesn't run, or runs as a Libertarian.
3. Congress refuses to fund Odyssey Dawn/Unified Protector.
4. Judges agree to hear the Kucinich lawsuit and it gets upheld.
5. Obama gets impeached by the House.
6. Libya goes much as OTL.
 
How to get it? Easy.
1. Romney doesn't get votes, for his "liberal policies".
2. Ron Paul doesn't run, or runs as a Libertarian.
3. Congress refuses to fund Odyssey Dawn/Unified Protector.
4. Judges agree to hear the Kucinich lawsuit and it gets upheld.
5. Obama gets impeached by the House.
6. Libya goes much as OTL.

First of all, it's extremely unlikely that there is going to be a constitutional confrontation between Obama and Congress on Libya. Boehner didn 't want such a confrontation--symbolic votes are all he wanted and got. Likewise, Boehner was anxious to squash even talk about impeachment, and there is no way it would get a majority in the House. "Judges agree to hear the Kucinich lawsuit and it gets upheld" is almost ASB territory given *Campbell v. Clinton* and other cases. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campbell_v._Clinton As for Ron Paul not running, there is no reason to think that his votes would go to Bachmann more than to other candidates (probably some of his supporters just wouldn't vote in the GOP primaries at all).

(One reminder to everyone: Benghazi didn't take place until well after the GOP race had been decided. And until then Libya was hardly a burning issue in the campaign. In fact, it really wasn't afterwards, either.)
 
Top